tony

I have an idea - restart this thread, discuss what RT said, and leave NDSU the heck out of it.

I call your "?" and raise you a "WTF?" Complaining about NDSU fans posting too much while at the same time continually trashing NDSU was bad enough. Complaining about NDSU fans posting too much and then posting your own version of what you think NDSU fans would post if they did post... that's verging on the tragicomic.

In truth, I only vaguely remember GF's smell and don't remember it getting bad all that often. I don't remember smelling the livestock barns at 'SU at all, but I'm sure that up close during a thaw it'd be fragrant. My advice, quit cruising (by) the sheep barns Twice the man indeed

I think the proper usage is, "Me going to Forks. Me shop at Mall." OTOH, maybe it's some sort of British influence by way of Canada. After all, Brits say "visiting hospital" instead of "visiting the hospital" and "going down the shops" instead of "going to the shops" and all sorts of weird things. Grand Cities isn't really that bad. The motto they came up with, "There's more on our horizon," should definitely go. What's it mean? Is something good about to happen or something bad; or is it going to be just more of the same? Every time I read it, it makes me think you're telling people to leave Grand Forks. I suggest going with "Funky Town". There'd be no need for a "the" with that; and you would have a pre-written song for your commercials. Just for smack purposes, how about "La Dame Malodorante du Nord?"

ScottM, didn't Ralph say something remarkably similar about President Kupchella? I love the smell of irony in the morning Oh mighty Hydras of specious arguments, I concede that you can come up with two complaints about NDSU for every one I counter. You sure do produce a lot of arguments. Maybe you should spend more time crafting intelligent ones.

DamStrait, if UND posters would only stop trashing NDSU I'd be gone so fast you wouldn't believe it. Beyond that, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Sicatoka, I get the feeling you don't know what land grant universities are all about. If I understand your point, you are trying to say that any degree NDSU offers that isn't agriculturally-related is a duplication even if UND doesn't offer it. That doesn't make sense.

Hey, I'm not saying UND can't put ads for students in Fargo. That's where the people are. All I was trying to do was point out that before people start hollering about program duplication, they should get their facts straight. I don't understand why you brought up Chapman, NDSU athletics, and the downtown campus just to smirk and sneer at them. Does that somehow make UND better? Hell, if NDSU is that terrible and Chapman that incompetent, you'd be well advised to find yourself better benchmarks.

http://www.state.nd.us/lr/assembly/57-2001...s/pdf/39308.pdf Degree duplication wasn't invented at NDSU. -UND add a Pharmacology doctorate in 1995. NDSU has had a well-respected program for a lot longer than that. -UND added a Criminal Justice doctorate in 2002 after getting the SBHE to hold back NDSU's program a full year (NDSU had 25 students who were going to enroll but who had to wait a year). -UND added a communication doctorate in 2001, the year after NDSU. -UND added a phsyics doctorate back in the '70s well after NDSU started one. How about the masters degrees in Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Technology (IE by another name still is IE), Mechanical Engineering, and Pharmacolgy? Don't think NDSU had them already?

Legend334, do you even remember why you were banned?

nickelboy, my point is that kind of argument is self-defeating. If NDSU is mocked for playing in a conference that averages 7K a game, what does that say about a conference that averages around 4k? If UND fans say the teams in the Great West are weak and uninteresting, doesn't that say something about DII and the new NCC? Think about it.

The NCC has lost four teams in the last couple years, not one. The NCC is 19-24 with one national championship in the DII playoffs. The Great West is 61-40 with 8 national championships (not counting NDSU's three poll championships). The average attendance at a Great West game next year is likely to average almost twice what an NCC game does. If you are laughing at the Great West, you must have ruptured a spleen laughing at the NCC. Peru State, Moorhead (at least twice), Upper Iowa (at least three times), Wisconsin-La Crosse (at least twice), Bemidji State, Oklahoma Panhandle, Northern State, Crookston, Concordia St Paul (at least twice), and SW Minnesota State? Nice non-conference scheduling... for a DIII conference.

Chapman & Taylor have always very open about their plans. If they were seriously considering jumping straight to DI-A, we'd have heard all about it. I'd never rule out DI-A but it isn't happening in the short term.

A) I am not somebison. However, I don't find the accusation insulting - it's not as if somebody was claiming that I'm SiouxMeNow. B) I booted you and a couple other UND fans because you were being jackasses. You are the same on this board too (if you have to "ax" what I mean, you are an even bigger jackass than I thought). I'd say this to your face. I'd say it to a jury. I'd say it on camera. I'd sign my name to it. How about you, little man?

I guess we'll see what happens. The proposals to lessen or eliminate the attendance requirements get voted on in April. Obviously, the Big Sky thinks there's a chance Idaho will get pushed out.

Yeah, what the BCS teams right now is to make a stink in the NCAA to force out teams like Idaho (irony alert). In fact, last time I checked, the proposals were all to reduce or eliminate the attendance requirement. Should Big Schools Force Out Smaller Schools from DI-A? (written from a BCS point of view): PROs 1. We each get about little more TV money a year. Right now, we get ALMOST ALL of it but, gosh dang it, if we can just get that last $100,000, we can give our head coach a .5% raise. 2. If we force schools down, some of them might end up in the Big Sky and that means NDSU probably wouldn't get invited and that would make a bunch of folks at UND deliriously happy. Out of the goodness of our hearts, we should bring some brightness and cheer to their dreary lives. CONs 1. One less DI-A team to pad our non-conference schedules 2. Schools affected will file lawsuits. 3. Schools affected or threatened will be calling their representatives in Washington and raising hell. 4. We (the BCS schools) are already on the verge of an epic smack down coming from Washington, let's play bully to show we're not scared of Congress.

Sorry, huskies679, I don't think there is. Even for NCC teams, I'm not sure. For example, I never thought that St. Cloud, Augie, or Mankato offered the full 36 equivalencies. Apparently they are getting closer to it now though.

I didn't think the article was that depressing. Finally, the average income in North Dakota is going up faster than other places. Thinking of Fargo as a "hip, college town" must have made some of you chuckle too. I've been sending emails to college buddies saying, "Hey, do a search on news.google.com on 'hip college town'." I'm pretty confident about Fargo though. NDSU produces a lot of graduates in what I think of as "wealth-producing" fields and Fargo has just about reached that size where growth should become self-sustaining and these graduates can find interesting jobs in state. Other cities can do the same - growing businesses takes time and patience. I've known a lot of friends who left the state: engineers, computer scientists, chemists, and math majors.. Not one left because of the weather. Hardly anybody could find rewarding work in North Dakota. Now that is starting to change. I'm tremendously optimistic about that. One thing that has to change is North Dakota's aversion to risk of any kind. Everything worth doing involves risk. Why sneer at people who take risks then? "He'll be sorry." "She's gotten too big for her britches." "North Dakotans just aren't good enough to compete with the big boys." bull$%!#. London in Shakespeare's time was the same size as Fargo and yet it produced men who would be giants in any age. The main problem with North Dakota is that we teach our kids that they can't compete with the world at large "so stay at home where it's safe." Being safe is a piss-poor goal, more suited for sheep than men. Sidetracked myself. North Dakota is never going to keep all kids from moving away. That's a self-defeating tactic. What North Dakota has to do is attract people who have NEVER lived in the state. If you want a place to stop shrinking, you have to welcome and attract people who never lived there. The Twin Cities is a great place to attract people from. It's a bloated, soulless collection of suburbs sprawled around a dead city center. Commuting there is awful - you'd be better doing a Grand Forks to Fargo commute than Maple Grove to St. Paul one - much better off. Despite wasting so much space, the place seems crowded and impossible to navigate. When I lived there, we put about 40000 miles a year on the cars.The suburbs were interchangeable and everything built in them looked great... now. It had all the problems of a big city and all the xenophobia of a small town. Greeeeeeat.

Heck, I have more information than that I've been tracking changes in DII for a bit over a decade now. In the last four years, the trend of losing big schools and replacing them with small to tiny ones has accelerated. For example, since 1999 DII has added 14 football-playing schools: Benedict (enrollment 3000, attendance rank out of 150: 24th) Bryant (3300, 109th) Charleston WV (1000, 131st) Concordia-St. Paul (1300, 106th) Findlay (3500, 118th) Lincoln MO (2600, 134th) Minnesota-Crookston (1900, 135th) North Greenville (1400, 141st) Oklahoma Panhandle (1200, 102nd) St. Anselm (2000, 124th) Tiffin (1300, 147th) Virginia-Wise (1300, did not report attendance to the NCAA) Western Oregon (4700, 95th) Mean enrollment of just over 2000. Median attendance ranking of 124. For comparison, SDSU, NDSU, UNC, and UC Davis have an average enrollment of over 15000 and an average attendance rank of 17.

pirate, the SAC doesn't offer the full 36, I think it's around 20. According to the NCAA, 33% of DII football schools offer the equivalent of 16 or fewer scholarships. The article doesn't list a median or mean. My money would be on 21 for both. When NDSU and UND started in DII, the scholarship maximum was 60. Then 45. Then 40. Now it's 36. Given that most schools offer fewer than 25, there is probably going to be another drop soon. On the other hand, DII has loosened the regulations on offering aid to athletes so what North Alabama is penalized for doing a decade or so ago would be fine now. The problem with this loosening is that it would be very easy to abuse. Have Title IX problems or don't like the way the budget numbers are looking? Don't give football players a football scholarship, give them need-based grants instead.

What exactly did he say that got you so upset? The Sicatoka, not THAT's ad hominem. You won't even discuss what he said and instead went directly to attacking him as being a Bison fan outwardly but a UND fan under the desk.

Actually, everybody was at least partially correct USD's signing class. The USD site says "Thirty-six student-athletes have signed institutional letters of intent to enroll at The University of South Dakota and join the Coyote football program beginning in the fall of 2004, according to an announcement Wednesday by South Dakota head football coach Ed Meierkort." I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "institutional letter of intent" until today (thanks d2football.com). Unlike an NLI, you don't have to receive aid to sign it but it's also non-binding, at least according to the person posting on D2football.com.

Grand Valley might have an open date - would that cause shock? BF1234, Let me lay some Dr. Seuss on you. Three fish, four fish, we need more fish.

Actually, I think it was a Grand Forks Herald or Dakota Student article I was thinking of, not the position paper K put together in response to NDSU's start to looking at DI. Does the Dakota Student have a searchable archive? It's been a while since I read it but both Thomas and Kupchella were quoted. Perhaps Thomas was the guy who said it. I'm not trying to slander the Kupchella or anything or put words in his mouth. I'm going after the argument, not people. I think we'd all admit the fear of North Dakota athletes not getting a chance to play at a DI school was a major point against NDSU going DI - even for people in favor of the move. I've always thought the reason most top athletes in ND don't go DI is that it's not cost effective to recruit in North Dakota. Edit: I found the article: Link It was Roger Thomas who said it. Sorry.

Yeah, I was wondering about the, "We got everybody we wanted in North Dakota" line myself. If he had said, "We got everybody we needed in North Dakota," I'd have a lot easier time with that. NDSU was definitely after Dressler, definitely talking to Caufield, and had to be interested in TrenBeath. OTOH, Kupchella (among many, many others) said schools like NDSU shouldn't go DI because North Dakota doesn't produce enough DI athletes. Here it is the very next year and apparently there were not one, not two, but SEVEN DI-caliber football players in North Dakota. What the heck happened? And UND, despite being DII, was recruiting WI, Canada, and Colorado (that we know of). All kidding aside, UND had a very good recruiting class this year.

That would explain why he ended up at UND I'm guessing based on the reference to "handling jocks" that EQ has something to do with EQuipment?